Joe Thomson feels Derry City have improved this season

Despite missing out on taking the Premier Division title race down to the wire, the Glaswegian believes Ruaidhrí Higgins’ squad are improving and the future looks bright.

Thomson is also excited about Sunday’s encounter at Shamrock Rovers, at Tallaght Stadium (KO 7pm).

"Obviously we're disappointed this week as we really wanted to go there and take it to the last day and keep it going, but overall it has been a good season,” he stated.

"Considering where we were last season, it's definitely an improvement, so we're moving in the right direction and hopefully we can improve again.

"I think everyone in the squad has got the drive and hunger and have that winning mentality, we just want to win every game, we want to win every competition we're in.

"To be honest even in training it's really competitive, so look we'll be aiming to try and win our last two league games and then obviously we'll be hoping to win the cup after that."

With Stephen Bradley’s men being presented with the league trophy after the Sunday’s encounter, Thomson is only focusing on the game and is expecting another tough battle.

In their previous four matches this season, Derry have won twice at the Brandywell and the previous games have saw Rovers win in Dublin and the other finishing in a scoreless draw on Foyleside, but all the meetings have been entertaining affairs.

In fact, the former Celtic man felt that loss at Tallaght in May thanks to Danny Mandroiu’s late strike, was the best the Candy Stripes have played against the Hoops this campaign and he would love a repeat performance but with a more positive outcome and he also conceded that their mindset for Sunday night, is all about a winning one.

"All the games against them have been good and I think we've performed well against them this season,” explained the 25-year-old.

"I know the last time we played them down there we got beat 1-0 down but I thought we were probably the better team on the day, so we'll be looking to go down aiming for the three points and give a good account of ourselves.”